I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to synchronization techniques for wireless communication.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication for multiple users by sharing the available system resources. Examples of such multiple-access systems include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) systems, Frequency division Multiple Access (FDMA) systems, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) systems, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) systems.
A wireless communication system may include many base stations (or Node Bs) that support communication for many user equipments (UEs). A UE (e.g., a cellular phone) may be within the coverage of zero, one or multiple base stations at any given moment. The UE may have just been powered on or may have lost coverage and thus may not know which base stations can be received. The UE may perform synchronization to detect for base stations and to acquire timing and other information for the detected base stations.
Each base station may generate a synchronization signal with one or more known codes and transmit this signal to assist the UEs perform detection and timing acquisition. The synchronization signal represents overhead and should be sent as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, the synchronization signal should allow the UEs to perform detection and timing acquisition as quickly and robustly as possible.